Grin and Bear it
by erf10722
Summary: Two-Bit didn't even pass high school. He is a joker, not to be taken seriously. Even he knows he's an idiot, his brain doesn't work the right way and he has to turn to alcohol to silence his thoughts. He's abnormal, in the worst way possible. Or so he thinks...
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! So this is a new story, about Two-Bit. Hopefully it will turn out well. Please review, I love to hear from you and I hope you enjoy!**

**I don't own the Outsiders**

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><p>PROLOGUE<p>

The likely hood of someone being born is very small. Without accounting for your grandparents and great grandparents and the unlikelihood that they were born and found their mates the way they did, the likely hood of that one sperm fertilizing that one egg is 1 in 40,000,000. Roughly. The chances of us being who we are, all of the tiny little experiences tucked inside a tiny vessel that is the human body is less, almost insignificant.

And the chances of me, Keith 'Two-Bit' Matthews being born the way that I was into the family that I was born into is so small, it's easy to believe that perhaps God really does exist and he had a plan all along. But when I come to this conclusion, I remind myself that there are billions and billions, infinity combinations of people that could exist on this earth and infinity combinations of which come together to make other humans or shape other humans with new experiences, and that God had no hand in it because it doesn't _matter _who is born.

Most people might thing that (for example) if perhaps if my mother hadn't been kicked out of her house and gotten herself pregnant when she was a teenager, a couple people's lives would change. But the most amazing thing, is that not just a couple peoples lives would change. Each of us causes a ripple and that ripple will spread across the entire world and everyone, every person no matter how old will be affected by our ripple.

And so when I, Keith 'Two-Bit' Matthews came into the world, of course I was destined for something special that would change the entire world, because in a way, every one of us is.

But perhaps, with luck, I would be less of a ripple and more of a tidal wave.

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><p>I was taken home from the hospital in the middle of the night, snuck away from a hospital in California where my mother had grown up to Tulsa, where I would grow up. She chose a house that could fit us. We lived with the landlord, a struggling middle aged family who needed the money desperately. My mother couldn't give it to them, so we moved out.<p>

We lived at some guys house for a while, a guy named Buck who in coming years I would become well acquainted with. Eventually, my mom got a job waitressing tables and we moved to the house that I spent most of my life in.

At this point I was about 1 and a half. My mom never heard my first word, but I can remember it clearly. There was a cheesy magazine on the table that said "Ladies, smile and let the world see it! (Why men are attracted to happy women)."

My first word was smile. I remember reading those words over and over, every day for maybe a week before I decided to read the article.

It didn't take me long to learn how to read, maybe a couple days, until I had read the entire magazine. So I read it again, and again.

When my mom decided it was time to start 'teaching' me how to read, she bought new books, with I immediately read, finding them far too easy and stupid.

I don't think my mom ever noticed. Not that she was neglectful-Far from it. She loved me a truly incalculable amount, which confused and annoyed me that I couldn't put a number to it. Numbers and words were the only thing that distinguished humans from animals.

I started school when I was 7 just like any normal kid, but I never spoke in class. The questions were dumb, literally 1+1.

So, they thought I was stupid, and I thought I was stupid because they thought I was stupid.

When I was 9 I met the gang. I was in Pony Boy's grade but I became closer friends to his brothers and Steve. Then we met a kid named Johnny, and a hood named Dally, and our gang was complete.

The likelihood of 7 hoods coming together and becoming friends against all odds was slim to none

And the likelihood of this story happening-Well...I still don't even know if I believe it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello Friends! Thank you so much for reviewing and being awesome people! DFTBA!**

**But please continue to review. Don't be shy! I get lots of reads on my stories, but not to many people actually tell me what they think, so I don't know if you left the story thinking, "Oh my goodness, is this girl in friking kindergarten?" or "Hey, that didn't suck!"**

**I don't own the Outsiders.**

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><p>I was completely preoccupied with my thoughts.<p>

This isn't hard to do, and I don't know why more people aren't completely overwhelmed by their thoughts.

I usually use alcohal to drown out the voices and numbers and letters and ideas that have polluted my head since I can remember, but tonight I wasn't allowed to.

Tonight I was going to meet Pony Boy's new girlfriend, and I wasn't allowed to drink. So I had to spend a whole two hourse with my thoughts and also try to be a decent human being.

My mind was busy giving me useless crap like the prime numbers in alphabetical order to a million.

I knocked on the door of the Curtis' house, rubbing my temples. Darry opened the door, looking a little better groomed then usual. "Two-Bit." He said curtly, then he paused. "You know you can't come in if you're drunk _or _hung over, right?" He asked, looking at my haggard appearence.

"Darry, I'm always drunk or hungover, this is as good as you're going to get." I felt frustrated at nothing in particular, which frustrated me further becuase emotions were so _complicated._ Humor was easy-just remember what people said and act like an idiot. I remembered everything anyone had ever told me anyway, it wasn't hard to smack talk to make jokes with anyone.

I walked in, throwing my coat over the racks carelessly. "Hi Annalise, Hey y'all." I said grumpily.

Pony looked surprised that I knew his girlfriends name. He had never told me about her, probably too scared he would be made fun of (not without reason.)

"Uh...Yeah, Annalise, this is Two-Bit, Two-Bit...I guess you already know."

The girl chuckled and asked Pony, "Talk about me a lot?"

"No, actually, I have no idea how he knew." He blushed bright red, a sign of embarrassment my brain provided. "Well, I talk about you, but Two-Bit is..."

My brain provided a dictionary of adjectives, eliminating the ones out of context and out of Pony's vocabulary, leaving only about a hundred probably ones. Of those one hundred, 76 were negative, the highest with a 50 percent probability, the others split between the numbers. I eliminated the ones with less then five percent-

I shook my head to clear it. Soda gave me a strange look. "You ok Two-Bit?"

I deduced that I was acting strange, an automatic assumption. I grinned. "Of course. Should we be helping Darry with dinner?"

"I'm fine." Darry called. There was an awkward silence. I looked Annalise up and down. She had a symmetrical face, a sign of beauty in society. She spent up to thirty minutes on her hair, but wore no make up, probably because she figured Pony wasn't materialistic enough to care.

She had calloused hands, indicating that she played a sport, most likely field hockey or softball.

Judging by the callous particularly pronounced on her inner thumb, she held the bat too tightly and swung back too far before starting to swing forward. I really didn't know anything about softball, so maybe she was supposed to do that, but judging on what professional baseballs players did on tv, it wasn't the most powerful way to swing.

I blinked, some insignificant part of my brain warning me that my name had been spoken.

"Sorry, what?"

Soda gave me a cheeky smile, but underneath it was the telltale signs of a different emotion. Worry, perhaps? "I wondered why you were being so nice to Pony." Pony's ears went red and Annalise chuckled, a hint of nervousness in her laugh.

"Darry told me not to." I shrugged. "You can thank your older brother that you're only tinted pink not as red as a tomato." I said to Pony. Actually, Pony could thank the fact that I was soused tonight, which I suppose was Darry's idea.

"Oh." Soda said, sounding a little disappointed that he couldn't team up on Pony today. The rest of the gang came only a couple minutes later. Johnny was quiet as usual, although him and Annalise knew each other from school and seemed to get along well.

Dally was grumpy and passive aggressive. Frowns annoyed me. Not in an empathetic way like most people assumed. It was just a pet peeve of mine. Faces in frowns and glares were so contorted, such wasted energy and brain activity. It was like a lopsided picture frame or nails on a chalk board to me, so I analyzed what made someone funny, and I became funny.

Steve sat by Soda as usual. He poked a little fun at the couple, but everyone was very subdued, or at least more domestic. Annalise was a nice girl, a girl that Pony liked (no one ever thought it would happen) so we were all on our best behavior.

Soda was telling an embarrassing story of Pony who was glaring at his older brother as Annalise cracked up, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "...And that must have been...3 years ago?"

"Naw, I said it was 1034 days ago." I said automatically then cursed myself inwardly for saying that allowed. I grinned, trying to pass it off as a joke. Soda smiled back, and Annalise laughed.

Soda continued on with his story. A minute later, I felt someones eyes on me. Pony stared at me open mouthed. "What's up Pony?" Soda asked, seemingly disappointed that Pony wasn't blushing and preoccupied with trying to be cool in front of his girlfriend.

"Two-Bit was right. It was on Dad's birthday exactly 1034 days ago." Soda raised an eyebrow.

"Lucky guess." I muttered. I was barely even paying attention. My brain was giving my useless information about that day, like what day of the week it was, at what minute I woke up and what minute I had reached the REM stage of sleep, what had been on tv that day. It was all too much.

Imagine being in a room with walls of your least favorite color with voices all around you, all trying to compete with each other and this high screeching, scraping sound that over shadows it.

That might be like how I felt, although I don't know if I can actually describe it.

_Just shut up! _I yelled at my brain internally. Suddenly the room felt too hot and I bolted out to the porch. I muttered something to my friends about being sorry to leave, but I had to go get a beer.

Darry followed me, an oven mitt on his right hand, still managing to look menacing with a flowered apron.

"Two-Bit, what the hell was that?"

"Sorry, Darry," I said, working to keep my voice even. I was so unnecessarily frustrated, I wanted to punch something, but I wasn't drunk enough.

"You know something Two-Bit, you have a serious problem."

I glared at him. "Yeah, I do." I knew he was talking about the alcohol, but that was the solution to my problem.

"You can't keep drinking like this."

"Trust me, I can."

"You'll die of liver disease or something."

"And you'll die of overwork. We all have our issues."

"No. Two-Bit, I'm putting my foot down, you aren't drinking anymore."

"Oh yeah, how're you gonna stop me?"

"By any means necessary." I glared at him for a second longer, then decided he wasn't worth the trouble of talking around. I needed a beer so badly it hurt. I ran out of the gate, running away from Darry and trying to run away from my mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey, sorry I haven't updated but I'm so stressed with school, I don't have enough room in my heart to stress about fan fiction, so I'm just taking this at a leisurely pace.**

**This chapter gets a little bit racial (I didn't make Two-Bit racist, but I just used the language of that time.) Just thought I should warn you.**

**I don't own**

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><p>Buck grinned when I entered. Possibly because he liked me, but more likely because I was an alcoholic that could pay for my alcohol. I desperately asked for a beer and felt the familiar numbing sensation as my brain registered it's medicine.<p>

I hustled a few games of pool and won consistently at poker, earning myself a couple hundred dollars. I put about fifty away to give to the Curtis family and used the rest to buy all the alcohol I could afford...which was a lot.

I actually can't remember much about that night, which made it perfect. I hated being able to remember every second of my life in vivid detail, having my brain flash random information at me at the most inconvenient times.

Unfortunately, because I was so drunk I also had no control of my actions and woke up in a jail cell.

"Shit." I said groggily as I recognized the ceiling. "Shit!" I said again, pressing my palms into my eyes. My brain helpfully proved that the triangular shadows on cell floor were congruent and isosceles. "Couldn't have told me to not do whatever the hell I did last night and you think the _triangles _are important." I yelled at my brain, not realizing I had spoken out loud.

My brain frantically yelled back, giving me images of the other triangles on all of my previous cell floors and noticing that these triangles were different sizes, none of the shadows, no matter what time of day it was, were matching up.

I panicked. I had never been in this cell before. What did that mean?

"Officer?" I called to the guard. "Yeah, hi, what did I do?" I shouted as he came near me.

"Driving under the influence and public indecency, but no one will pay for bail for you, so you'll be here for three weeks." Three weeks. Three weeks! Yes, there was alcohol in prison, but it was nearly impossible to get a hold of a drop, let alone enough to actually get drunk, to stop talking to myself and feel sane.

I had only ever had over night in prison-Darry or _someone_ had always bailed me out, but I had a feeling that after our row, Darry wouldn't be too anxious to pay a shitload of money to get me out. He probably thought that jail would sober me up.

_I doubt he'll like me much when I am sober _I thought spitefully.

"Hey, officer!" I yelled again just as the guard was turning around. He snapped his head back, scowling.

"What, Matthews?" Not a great sign that the guard knew my name, but I pushed that thought away for now.

"Can I have a phone call? Also, uh...do you know if Dallas Winston is in here" I gestured vaguely around the prison. I knew I looked panicked because the guard actually softened his voice slightly to a gruff grumble rather than a hate filled sneering tone.

"You already used your phone call yesterday when you first got in. You called someone named Darry and had a fighting match over the phone. No, Winston is still loose on the streets. Unfortunately." He added the last word under his breath, and I knew that it had been a mistake to mention that I had ever even heard of Dally.

The guard left me alone with my thoughts.

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><p>I don't know how long it was before I was brought back to attention of the world around me. For once, my intelligence wasn't a curse but a way to distract myself. My brain was being useless and boring as usual, what with the way it was calculating the effect of hiroshima on each layer of the atmosphere and the percent of change on the gases that comprise the atmosphere and that affect on the world.<p>

I suppose I should explain something about what I can do. First, I have as much control over it as a normal person has over their thoughts. Second, as far as I can tell, it doesn't make me correct more often than any other person. Well, than any other smart person. Sure, I can calculate things much quicker, but the percent of error is about the same, except they've had training while I just do it naturally. It sort of feels like when you just go off on a train of thought and it gets crazier and crazier...like a dream sequence. And it's truely terrifying to feel like you're dreaming when you're awake and expected to be paying attention.

I don't think I explained it very well, but it's really hard to explain I suppose. That's another thing-I can't ever put my thoughts into words for other people to understand, but it makes perfect sense to me. I think everyone has experienced this type of thing before, but for me it just happens all the time.

So anyway, my thoughts were interrupted by a guard transporting me to my new cell for the next three weeks. I didn't even notice him until he slapped me on the chest to snap me out of my daze. I walked in a dream-like manner behind him for maybe 500 meters.

He brought me to a different section of the jail where there were only negroes. I didn't particularly care, although I was surprised that they broke their rules of segregation for me. The guard even looked a little apologetic, but I didn't see this as a bad thing. Perhaps it was even easier to get alcohol in the colored jail and I wouldn't have to be tortured.

"This is completely against protocol, but you were screaming and talking to yourself. The white prisoners were complaining. We called your mom and agreed to drop a week off your sentence for this deviation of rules."

I felt a lurch in my stomach at the mention of my mom. She had never stopped thinking that I could be more-that I was only showing the tip of the iceberg and that if I just stopped getting arrested, I could be a success. She always cried whenever I went to jail. I really hated my photographic memory as it dished out pictures and snippets of all the times I had disappointed my mother.

I pinched my arm hard, and was surprised when the thoughts halted and I was able to concentrate on the present.

The guard pushed me into a cell with about ten other men. I couldn't help but notice that the cells were in deplorable conditions. _separate and not equal_ I thought. I wasn't much for politics-the solution was always SO simple, always able to be proven correct by equations and graphs, and yet we got nothing done. But this prison system seemed, even to my analytical brain, completely unfair.

The white guard left and the other prisoners looked warily at me, some with distaste, some with hatred, some with wariness. I noticed that all of them had wounds. My brain told me that they were all created at the same time, about three days ago and that they had not been given medical care before coming here. Most of the cuts looked infected.

The wired-wrong part of my brain took complete control and I reached out to the nearest man. I grabbed his arm gently. I think he was too alarmed to wrench it away. I put his arm next to the naked side of another man. The wounds were similar sized. I ran through the weapons I knew of, debating each one and mentally deciding if it made sense.

This is another disadvantage of my...disease. Most people could probably put the pieces together in certain situations faster than I and analyze the situation. I find all situations that could have occurred, even the almost impossible ones, and I use logic to rule them out.

"You were attacked? Police brutality." I hardly even realized that I was speaking out loud. "Batons. Protesting? Civil rights movement. March on the Ribbon!" I can't put situations together as quickly as most people, but I am much better at extrapolating and bringing forth information I didn't even know I had and using it to correctly deduce a situation. The Ribbon (basically the main street of Tulsa) had been partially closed off a couple of days ago, around the same time these peoples' wounds were made

The men looked at me, now with expressions of confusion and terror.

The man whose arm I had grabbed before extended his hand with the bruise on it, this time for me to shake. "Max Lee Dunlap."

"Two-Bit Matthews." I said back, shaking his hand, and making sure that I wore a winning and confident smile.

There was a long moment of silence, then one of the men held up a deck of cards. "You know how to play, white boy?"


End file.
